Lori Sturdevant: Doug Johnson prepares for new role

Doug Johnson is no longer chair of the Minnesota Senate Tax Committee. That's enough right there to make the 2001 session of the Legislature, well, different.

But lest Gov. Jesse Ventura and other tax policy interlopers rest easy, please note that the wily DFLer with the impish grin hasn't gone away. He has merely moved to the head of the Senate Finance Committee -- a move dictated by a committee chair-rotation rule imposed a few years back in response to the misguided term-limits craze.

(Let it further be noted that the Senate Tax Committee gavel has been passed to Sen. Larry Pogemiller, a Minneapolis DFLer who is an accomplished graduate of the Doug Johnson School of Wily Legislating.)

Johnson says he is eager for the new challenge. But at age 58 and after 30 years in the Legislature, 20 of them as Senate tax chief, the senator from Tower is not likely to exhibit dramatic change.

Last week, he appeared to be reprising a role he played to perfection 10 years ago -- that of lead spear-thrower in the slaying of a governor's tax-reform proposal. Ventura let slip that he was leaning toward recommending that the sales tax be applied to business service transactions -- legal and accounting services and the like. That would provide a big chunk of the money needed to accomplish Ventura's larger goal of relieving property taxpayers of some of the burden of school costs.

Johnson had a ready response to the services sales-tax idea: Been tried, by me, more than a decade ago. Can't be done. It's "an administrative, legal and political nightmare." Fuhgeddaboutit.

Ten years ago, the new governor was Republican Arne Carlson, and the tax reform he touted would reduce the property-tax load on businesses and landlords and shift it to higher-income homeowners. Lower-income homeowners would be spared, Carlson said.

Johnson didn't buy it. He made sure nobody else did, either. By the time Johnson got through decrying the plan's abuse of Minnesota homeowners, Carlson's plan could muster only one vote from 201 legislators. Carlson suffered about a six-year loss of appetite for property-tax reform as a result.

It's entirely possible that Johnson had more than tax-policy reasons for being so hard on Carlson. The Republican had, after all, just unseated Johnson's friend and mentor Rudy Perpich. In those years, Johnson and Carlson had a less than cordial personal relationship.

By comparison, Johnson and Ventura have almost no relationship. The two connected briefly in 1998 when they were both running for governor in the pre-primary round. Since the election, Johnson says, he has had only one private conversation with Ventura, and it wasn't about taxes.

If he could huddle with Ventura about tax reform, he might say something like this: "You've got the right premise. The state should pay a bigger share of school costs. But you've got to fund in a way that's politically palatable. You don't have any legislators who are willing to take a tough vote for you. You'll only hurt yourself if you propose something too extreme. You have to make it an easy vote."

In other words, Ventura should use surplus dollars to pay for his school-funding increase. Any other choice involves raising somebody's taxes or cutting somebody's appropriation, and will set the legislative hounds on the idea -- with Johnson leading the pack.

Even though Johnson may still daydream about succeeding Ventura, he sounds sincere when he disavows any desire to be the lead dog attacking Ventura's tax ideas. "I want him to succeed," Johnson says of Ventura. "When he succeeds, our state succeeds." So do incumbent legislators.

What Johnson envisions for himself instead in the 2001 session is a lot of fast learning about the spending side of the tax-and-spending equation -- and some occasional consultation on the tax side too. He is quick and careful to say he will respect the prerogatives of the new Senate tax chair. But, when asked, he won't hold back his own opinions -- and the Capitol crowd's habit of seeking Johnson's opinions on matters of taxation will be hard to break.

Committee-chair rotation was supposed to limit the power of key chairpeople. In Johnson's case, it may do just the opposite.

-- Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She can be contacted at lsturdevant@startribune.com